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McCain’s War Campaign

Senator John McCain at the Virginia Military Institute today. (Photo: Andrew Councill for The New York Times)

LEXINGTON, Va. – -Senator John McCain followed his speech on Iraq at the Virginia Military Institute with a fairly contentious press conference.

Mr. McCain repeatedly said that he had given no thoughts to his own political situation in delivering a speech forcefully defending the war in Iraq. He repeatedly said that Democrats were acting out of political motivation in pressing legislation to end the war in Iraq.

(Though when pressed on whether he really believed no Democrat was acting out of genuine belief, rather than out of politics, he responded: “What their motives are, I can’t ascertain.”)

But a variation on one question – whether or not his presidential ambitions now rest on the success of the President Bush’s policy in Iraq – had him bristling.

“Is General Petraeus now in effect your campaign manager?” asked a reporter from the New York Daily News, referring the top United States commander in Iraq.

“That is not a kind comment,” Mr. McCain responded tersely. “He is a brave man.”

People are underestimating how this will play with the GOP base. McCain is doing much better in early primary states than he is nationally and in conservative Iowa and South Carolina, his message will likely resonate with the grassroots who still support the war.

“And while the Beltway insiders continue to write John McCain’s obituary, a new South Carolina poll shows McCain running dead-even with Rudy Giuliani…. McCain ties Romney in New Hampshire and he’s within striking distance of Giuliani in Iowa…. Maybe, just maybe, GOP primary voters are out of touch with Washington’s conventional wisdom….”

Let Bush veto the spending bill. Then refuse to send him an alternative.

The DoD can only shuffle money and resources around for so long. What then?

Either Bush brings them home or he keeps them there as their bullets and fuel run out. He might actually do the latter, since he’s a coward who hid from Vietnam but who was all too eager to send our boys to Babylon.

Or maybe we ought to worry the war-mongering faction would attempt a coup. I wouldn’t put it past them.

This is now a Republican war, maintained by the same Republicans in Congress who enabled Bush and Cheney’s deceit and incompetence for four years. It is the Republicans who are sacrificing more and more Americans, Democrats who are trying to bring them home alive.
McCain’s prediction of chaos in Iraq after we leave may be accurate, but nothing 160,000 Americans can do in a country of 23 million or more Iraqis will prevent it. The issue before us is how many Americans will the Republicans send to their deaths before the voters can throw them out in November, 2008. All of this blood is on the hands of the Republican Party, with few exceptions like Chuck Hagel and Walter Jones. The chicken hawks who launched this war learned nothing from Vietnam. McCain at least has the excuse that he was suffering in a North Vietnamese prison while many of us learned the folly of shedding American blood in another country’s civil war.

John McCain should be recast in the role originated by Divine in John Waters’s “Pink Flamingoes.”
In his quest for the Presidency–and his denial of reality–he is truly showing how low a Republican presidental wannabe must go to get the nomination.

If senate democrats accomplish nothing else this week, they should dispose of the Iraq war’s latest myth – a hoax to which McCain wholeheartedly subscribes – that, four years after the fall of Baghdad, our friends are eagerly anticipating our departure but our enemies have not yet begun to wait us out.

I’m convinced that those among the political elite that continue to support this war stand to gain something from it personally. Cheney and Bush are war profiteers hoping for a long-standing U.S. backed government in Baghdad that will enable the oil infrastructure to be rebuilt using American contractors of their choosing. McCain feels he’ll secure the GOP nomination by supporting and then will edge closer to the center. Ultimately Iraqi’s will choose their own destiny. We will pull out within the next 2 years and a full-scale civil war will erupt. Either an Islamic fundamentalist regime will ascend or another strong-man in the mold of Hussine will emerge. Americans will scratch their heads and wonder what it was all worth and the rest of the world will be validated in their assertion that the U.S. waged an illegal war with no positive outcome.

Today, John McCain proved that he is a man of principle. The war is unpopular – he said that countless times in the Senate questioning Donald Rumsfeld’s strategy of too few troops and too many mistakes. Yet, McCain is right to raise the specter of what an immediate pull out would mean for the United States, the middle east and the world. It is unfeasible to think that if we leave the waring factions will make nice, and kiss and make up. We as a nation have an obligation to figure out a reasonable way forward. McCain did that today – he deserves credit and support for his honesty in the face of adversity.

This man chose the political path he believes is right while others chose the political path they believe is profitable for them and their party.

Senator McCain, the odds are against you. If the Democrats have their way, then you will lose the election and America will lose the war. But if the surge, which would work given a longer timeline, achieves some semblance of peace in the short-time, then you will win.

Good luck, Senator McCain! You are America’s best presidential candidate for victory in Iraq.

William says McCain is taking his present stand to strengthen his position with conservative Republican primary voters in South Carolina and Iowa. They represent no more than 20 percent of the electorate. How does what McCain is doing help him with the more sensible and more realistic 80 percent? McCain is placing himself well out of the American mainstream. It’s a goofy plan.

Senator McCain is supporting our country’s effort to defeat the terrorists in Iraq because it is the correct thing to do.The United States is the leading advocate and exporter of liberty and democracy in the world.Our nation’s enemies want to shoot and bomb American forces to force them out of strategically important places around the world.Iraq is one of those places.The U.S. should not allow these fascists to drive us out of Iraq.If the U.S. supports moderates in Iraq and other predominantly Muslim nations in their quest for liberty and democracy,we will make tremendous advances in the war against Islamic terrorism.If our nation leaves Iraq now,it would be a major victory for the forces of evil in the Middle East.President Bush,Senator McCain and other reasonable individuals in Washington are trying to lead America in its effort to defeat those who would destroy liberty in Iraq and the West if they could.We should support freedom around the world.

Mr. McCain is looking at the aftermath of a premature US withdrawal which is more that any Democratic candidate, with the exception of Mr. Biden, is doing. There is a bigger picture here and it is Iran. Iran is the leading eporter of terror funds. You don;t just leave bury your head in the sand and expect the middle east to be secure with Iran in charge. They would like nothing more that to destabilize oil producing countries to drag down western economies. McCain is showing courage as he did in Vietnam and vision.

Well, not sure who the advisors are for McCain. Sounds almost like Rove’s advice to Bush to show resolve and what not.. Or is he playing to the base to narrow his gap for the primary? McCain has lost his credibility long time ago from the independent voters ever since he kissed and made up with Bush.

It is all a mirage… Anyone who uses the words “victory in Iraq” is deluding themselves, or revising their definition of victory as each month passes.

More years of elevated American troop levels are not going to change the fundamental fight that WILL play out in Iraq, though it might delay it.

Claiming that you want to “win” the war by temporarily dousing violence for a short time before exiting is dishonest, and simply a convenient way to save face. It gives war-boosters a lame excuse to try to later blame those against the war for having lost the war.

Civil wars take many years to play out to their resolution. Do you seriously think delaying the shake out is victory in Iraq?

Victory in Iraq is creating and establishing an Iraqi government that is our ally.

It should be noted that the first part of victory has been achieved, the Iraqi government has already been created. The latter part, which is the more difficult, is in the process of being achieved.

All the benefits of an allied Iraq are too much to list, but they include: US ally in the war on terror, stabilizing force in the Straight of Hormuz, a country that wont fire missiles into Israel (like Sadaam did), and much more. All of these benefits wont immediately come, even when the war is won.

We will know the war is won once the Iraqi government can provide reasonably law and order. Their law and order wont be nearly as good as America’s law and order, but it will be reasonable for that part of the world, the Middle East, and for a country that just was established.

I had the honor and the privilege of hearing John McCain speak today. I do not know whose stance on the War in Iraq will ultimately be judged, by history and not contemporary polls or other measuring sticks. This is what I do know. First, Islamic extremists have continually showed a barbaric disregard for the sanctity of human life. They kill innocent people. Not a single person in the World Trade Center was guilty of any crime other than being a Christian and an American. I read a news story the other day, the same one that McCain alluded to in his speech, about terrorists sneaking a bomb past US security checkpoints because they had two young children in the car. Those children were killed by the ensuing explosion. If terrorists are willing to kill their own children in the pursuit of their goals, what do you think they will do to yours? As for the reasons why we are in Iraq at all, I personally believe that the Bush administration lied to the American people (this is coming from a former Bush supporter). However, since our occupation of Iraq the war has metamorphisized into something that is not about oil, or Saddam Hussein. Rather, the War in Iraq has become the newest face on a war that has raged for more than a thousand years. If we remember the history of Western Society and of Islam, we will remember things such as: The Battle of Tours, the Crusades, and the Inquisition. All of these things have been blood letting events in history. Therefore, the current war is a Republican war, nor is a Democratic war. It is, however, a war that further highlights the intoleration of monotheistic religions. I believe, that McCain and others like him are possibly setting a course that can end this long and bloody conflict by showing the generosity of Western culture. We sacrifice the lives of our young men and women not for conquest or glory or economic benefit (those who say this war was fought for oil have obviously not been to the gas pump lately). We do it, should do it, and must do it so that the three monotheistic religions can move beyond the tendency of erasing the opposing religion and onto a time when we respect all, we help all and all prosper. It is time to give back to the Islamic world. They are the ones who preserved Plato and Aristotle, who are the basis of Western philosophy and have guided Western civilization to its current status. We must through cooperation, which is what McCain’s policy on Iraq is all about, extend to the Islamic world concepts of freedom and equality (which we have recently acquired and hold in such high esteem), representation of all its groups (notice I did not say democracy because the Islamic world has never had a democratic system in history until very, very recently aka Lebanon), modern technology, a voice in the international community other than being the antagonist. In short, we need to see Muslims as our brothers and sisters and not as our enemies. If we can do this, if we can follow the teachings of our own religion, then all will be victorious. Right now, the only way to start this process is to succeed in Iraq. To withdraw is to sign the death warrants of untold amounts of American and European lives. Who wants this on their hands? I for one do not. So the election of John McCain will not be like electing Bush into a third term with the catch phrase “stay the course” but rather planting the seed to a possible paradise which we all have the responsibility of trying to attain.

Whether you agree with his stance or not, it should be noted that he is one of the very few politicians in modern history who didn’t flow with the polls, equivocate, obfuscate or develop a revisionist rationale (ala Hillary Clinton). I believe it was Adlai Stevenson who gave a great speech and was told that he could count on every intelligent voter being on his side, which he said wouldn’t be enough. For McCain, he probably stands the same with principled voters.